Michele Sommer led the human resources department at a major U.S. company for 12 of her 20+ years there before losing her job in a restructuring. She then consulted for a year before landing an interim role at a small nonprofit in southwestern Connecticut where she took a 40 percent pay cut.

Sommer, 50, is job hunting now because the non-profit job she started in November is only intended to last 12-18 months. Her advice is "to keep positive, keep at it and keep networking." The Fairfield County resident got job leads from LinkedIn, where she is active in HR groups.

Southwestern Connecticut has a huge surplus of high-skilled workers, with one of the nation's biggest underemployment gaps. Underemployment is defined as when a person works full time at a job not using his or her skills, or when a person wants to work full time but can only secure part-time work. Underemployment is weighing on Fairfield County's recovery and forcing a structural change to the job market, where highly-educated workers displace the less educated for lower-paying jobs.

"In Connecticut, we still have not recovered the jobs following the financial tsunami," said Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis in Storrs. He said the underemployed spend more cautiously "and that will flow through to the economy with less demand for restaurants and other discretionary spending."

Broadest measure

The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates U-6 as the broadest jobless measure including short-term discouraged workers who stopped job hunting, other marginally attached workers and those working part-time for lack of full-time jobs. Connecticut's annualized average U-6 stood at 13.9 percent in 2013, down from a recession peak of 15.7 percent in 2010. Of Connecticut's 1.3 million employed civilian workers who usually work full time, 18,600 worked 34 hours or less due to economic reasons, according to the Current Population Survey for 2013.

There are 175 Connecticut employers currently participating on and off in a Shared Work program, where if an employer cuts at least four workers' hours 20-40 percent for economic reasons, the workers can collect unemployment benefits, said Judi Luther, a Labor Department operations coordinator in Wethersfield. The program started in 1992 and Connecticut is seeking to expand the allowance if an employer has to cut at least two workers' hours 10-60 percent. Luther said there is a U.S. initiative for more states to participate in programs like these.

Chmura Economics & Analytics, based in Richmond, Va., ranked 366 U.S. metropolitan areas for the largest degree of underemployment and Fairfield County came in fourth, topped only by Barnstable Town, Mass., the Washington, D.C. , area and Greater San Francisco. As of 2013's last quarter, the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk area had an 11.3 percentage point difference between labor force supply vs. demand for those with at least a bachelor's degree.

"That means (Fairfield County) should be an attractive place for expanding companies requiring a highly educated workforce. Those firms typically pay well. On the other hand, it says there's a lot of competition for those high-paying jobs if you have a lot of people who are underemployed," said Christine Chmura, president and chief economist of her eponymous firm.

Local employer Stew Leonard's has seen more resumes from professionals. Norwalk recruiting manager Christine Arnette said Stew's tries to keep turnover low with a mix of high school students, new college graduates, moms returning to work and professionals who took buyouts or were laid off. She said Stew's in Norwalk attracted 2,100 applications for its 115 openings in 2013, and the Danbury store drew 1,800 applications for 85 openings. As for the hiring process, "the important thing is someone with a good attitude."

The job search is challenging for recent college graduates and tougher for young people without college degrees. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that while young college graduates take time to transition into jobs using their educations, the underemployment rate for college graduates aged 22 to 27 has risen since the 2001 recession from 34 percent to about 44 percent in 2012.

"There has been a change in the composition of the job market. Studies have shown college graduates are being hired into jobs where you don't need a degree, displacing those without a college degree," Carstensen said. The BLS projected entry-level jobs requiring a master's degree from 2012-2022 will grow 18.4 percent

Networking groups galore

Darien Professionals Networking Group, formed in the mid-1990s to help the underemployed and job hunters, ironically might disband because so many networking groups have emerged since the Great Recession.

Board member Ian Kennedy said, "You as the job seeker have to decide from an economic standpoint whether to take a part-time role, or one lower in compensation, level or title. But the element of the job search doesn't change. You still need a coherent resume, a good elevator pitch and to interview well."

Kennedy, who is also president of Schegg Group, a Shelton-based career management consulting group, said any job hunt is tough, even for those willing to take a lesser role because openings are now widely publicized and attract many applicants. He said hiring managers worry that an overqualified worker might get bored and resume job hunting.

Job hunters said they worry that the stigma of being labeled as underemployed might hurt their job hunting and salary negotiations when the labor market rebounds.

With the recent news that Fairfield County is home to 14 of Connecticut's 15 billionaires, economist Carstensen didn't see the Forbes list as aiding the economy. "High-income people don't create the same demand for goods and services. High-income folks have the propensity to invest and save. You're also not going to eat twice as many meals during the week just because you're a billionaire."

Betty Wong (bettymwong@gmail.com) is a freelance writer and media consultant in Greenwich. After spending five years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal at the start of her career, she spent the next two decades at Reuters News, where her last role in 2011 was global managing editor.